What's so special about 'The Alchemist'?
It's probably been recommended to you before. What's the hype?
I’m not a betting man but if I was, I would bet a pretty large amount that you’ve either heard of or read the book The Alchemist. It’s one of those books that seems to find its way into every single one of those “books that’ll change your life” types of videos and posts. In 2025, there’s no possible way that you’re unaware that this book exists. I read the other day that it holds the Guinness World Record for the most translated book or something of that nature. I’m not sure how true that is, given that there’s a piece of literature called the Bible that you may have heard of that I think may actually be the most translated book of all time, but you get the point. Throughout the years, it’s been something that has almost a cult-like appreciation and reverence.
So what’s so special about it? Why does everyone talk about it so much?
WARNING: This post may contain spoilers. 93% sure I’m going to include some specific details in here.
I first heard about the book in around 2019-2020. I was watching some podcast that Kobe Bryant (RIP to the GOAT) was doing with Jay Shetty I believe, and one of the questions at the end was “What’s the book that had the biggest impact on you,” to which Kobe simply said “The Alchemist.” No explanation. No backstory. He didn’t go into detail about why it’s had the biggest impact on him. Nothing. He just named the book. So, I made a note of this. Around this time I actually became interested in alchemy, both in the literal sense of how to transmute base metals into gold and in the more esoteric sense of how to transmute the lower into the higher. I spent an unreasonable amount of time looking into the origins of alchemy and its methods. I bought books that contained a bunch of medieval esoteric and downright weird drawings of the alchemical process. I somehow know what the “alchemical wedding” is referring to. I have no clue how I found myself down that rabbit hole but I was in the trenches. I read a damn PDF that swears the secret ingredient to making the philosopher’s stone is…pee. Piss. Urine. I was deep in the trenches (not so much in the trenches that I tried to make it but deep enough to where if piss wasn’t the secret ingredient, I may have considered it). Hearing my favorite basketball player talk about a book called The Alchemist seemed right up my alley. I had to see what it was about.
I got the book and I’m sure I let it sit for months as I started countless other books without finishing them. One day, I was probably looking for something else to read, saw The Alchemist and thought, “Maybe I should finally read this.” I had never really gotten into fiction much. Most of what I was reading around then were alchemical texts like I said, stuff like The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, The Power of Now, and Awakened Imagination. My library was mostly filled with books about how to use your mind correctly or the far-out topics like what the fabric of the existence is all about, aka the weird shit. But very little fiction.
As I started the book and began to progress, it was as enthralling as other people said it was, which kind of annoyed me. I like to be a skeptic or contrarian for some reason, so I think a part of me wanted to think, “Nope. Trash.” But it was good. Very good actually. The simplistic and almost vague way it was written drew me in. I felt like the book was written how I think and see the world, in a sense. There would be a scene or sequence of events that happen in the book, and then there would just be a singular sentence that encapsulates what just happened. I wish I still had the book with me to give an example, but that’s kind of how my internal dialogue punctuates things.
The main thing that drew me in, though, was the fact that the book truly illustrates the synchronistic nature of life when you let it play out. Synchronicities and deja vu are two things that have really filled me with a sense of wonder. That’s the best word to describe what I feel when I’m in those moments or even when I think about moments. I was about to say “that really interest me,” but it’s deeper than that. I genuinely feel like those two things, deja vu specifically, are moments where a singular event is happening at once across space and time and it feels like we’ve done it before, when really, all versions of us that exist or particles that are quantumly entangled are doing this thing right now. Deja vu feels interdimensional.
Synchronicities feel like that, too, but in a different way. They feel like little breadcrumbs being left on a trail that guides you somewhere. They feel like you’re on an easter egg hunt or in a video game and you reached some sort of checkpoint. There’s a point in the book where the main character is given two stones to make decisions. He loses one and then ends up needing one later. The book is filled with these little things that captured my imagination because I could think of countless times in my own life where something like this has happened. I can recall researching a topic for months and then finding 6 books on top of a gas pump on a random day about that exact same niche topic. There goes that sense of wonder again.
I think The Alchemist resonates with people so much because there’s an innate desire for adventure that we all have as humans and as spiritual beings, truthfully. I think some people have this desire more than others do, and some people are probably also more likely to follow the desire than others, but I think the idea of some personal adventure or quest or journey is something that just exists in our collective. Everyone is a seeker, to some degree.
It doesn’t matter if you realize that what you were looking for is where you always were. Technically, you never needed to go anywhere to get what you thought you wanted. On the adventure toward what you “want,” you actually see that it’s more about the way that the adventure unfolds in impossible ways that’s fulfilling. It’s about the treasure but it’s not. You actually want to find the breadcrumbs and go wherever that leads, regardless of the outcome.
There’s a sense of wonder that I feel like most people are missing. When was the last time that something made you wonder or filled you with the sensation of wonder? It’s probably been a while. That’s why people are drawn to The Alchemist. The overall message is great, too, but I think but we’re really drawn to the prospect of a synchronistic adventure that can only exist for you. The same person could do the same things as you on the way, but the events that unfold are tailor-made for you only.
I also believe that we can be so caught up in family life or relationship life or collective life that we forget that life is very much a personal game with its own story and journey. We all have our own individual adventures that we want to go on and that we must go on. We need to go on these adventures. This is the most neglected truth of life that I’ve seen. I don’t think you’re doing anyone a favor by neglecting the adventure that you need to take. The thought of needing to be there for other people is noble and true at times. I said that this is a personal game, but it’s also a collective game. Other people do exist. But there’s a tendency to think that it’s necessary to forgo the individual adventure entirely in favor of ones that include all others. That is not the case.
This makes me think about the frequency that deja vu and synchronicities happen. For the regular person living a regular life in 2025, it probably doesn’t happen too much. It probably happens less if you don’t actively think about it. I think we’re living these fast lives, but more prevalently, we’re living routine lives that are on autopilot that causes us to miss out on the actual nature of reality. The more I observe life and think about it, I feel like life is more psychedelic and weird and “magical” than we give it credit for, and that’s why we can’t see it for what it is. Imagine you’re driving in your city that you’ve been in for 5 years and know your way around. You don’t need to look for exits or street names or any of that. You just know where to go off of muscle memory. Anything could be happening around you, put you don’t need to pay attention to it.
Now, imagine being somewhere that you’re less familiar with and you need to drive somewhere. You have your GPS on but (unless you’re a psycho) you’re still paying extra attention to signs. You notice that, right where you need to turn, a cardinal lands on the street sign. You notice this because you’re paying more attention and are outside of the normal autopilot state. You get to your destination and completely forget that you’re staying at… The Cardinal Hotel. After getting settled into the hotel for a bit, you go to get some food somewhere and see someone sitting in a booth. You get closer and see that they’re reading the same book that you’re reading, and they’re wearing a Cardinals hat.
I just made this entire hypothetical situation up, but this type of stuff happens all the time if you have the eye to see it. On autopilot and in the routine of things, you’ll miss 90% of these moments. On an unfamiliar adventure, they’re clear as day. They happen at such a frequency that you’ll think you’re going crazy. But it’s a feature of this life we’re in. We’re just too preoccupied to notice them.
What’s so special about The Alchemist? I think it’s the fact that it awakens a certain level of wonder in us that seems beyond reach in day-to-day life. It speaks to a truth and desire that I believe exists in everyone to various degrees.
Basically, everyone wants to go on their own adventure. We’re all adventurers. We’re all seekers.
Actually, I think everyone wants to be free.
As I rewatch the entire interview with Kobe that I mentioned above, something from the middle of the interview stood out that makes infinitely more sense in hindsight. He’s talking about coaching his daughter’s (RIP Gianna) team and how instead of barking orders and them, he asks questions and lets the kids figure out what to do in the game (or maybe they don’t figure it out). He said that the excitement toward practice increased because the kids felt like they were on their own personal quest.
EDIT: Was scrolling Substack and ran across this post.
Totally agree! The book is so well received because it absolutely taps into that part of us that is innately seeking to explore and expand. We’re made of fire, with every breath we grow and reach new places. We aren’t really living our lives if we aren’t feeding that part of us. Not doing so feels restrictive, like holding your breath. We gotta breathe deep and freely!